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Lowell Hockey Win Cliches NCAA Spot For DU

Lowell University's hockey team defeated Providence 2-1 on Friday evening in the Hockey East playoffs. The victory clinched a spot in the 16-team NCAA Tournament for the University of Denver.

Thanks to other upsets in conference tournaments last night, DU continued to rise in the Pairwise Rankings eventually settling at #10.

Depending on how the conference championship games go today, DU will end up anywhere between #8 and #12. The most like scenarios are #9 or #10.

DU will find out where they are heading and whom they will play in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday. Anish Shroff, Barry Melrose and Dave Starman will host
the 2013 NCAA Ice Hockey Tournament Selection Show at 7 PM MT Sunday evening on ESPNU.

13 comments:

I have to say that Barry Melrose wrecks the excitement of the slection show. He loves East coast hockey and and doesn't recognize programs west of the Mississipi. It is time for them to swap out Barry and his mullet for some new blood.

Barry Melrose is hardly an expert on college hockey and only covers it grudgingly and as a condition of his continued employment by ESPN.

What little Melrose knows, he gleans from media coverage in New England (where he lives) and his interns' odd forays onto the internet while doing prep for the selection show. As such, his analysis is always thin and his biases are always towards east coast teams and the ones that CHN and USCHO have spent the most bandwidth on over the last two weeks.

Make no mistake, Melrose would MUCH prefer to be covering the CHL championships...

Kudos to the FSN announcer last night, who broke a story while interviewing Bruce McLeod at the Final Five. The WCHA is going to alternate their championship between Minnesota and Grand Rapids every other year. Would that work for the NCHC? Minnesota and the Pepsi Center?

Denver would for sure be preferable in terms of air travel; DEN and MSP are both extremely competitive markets when it comes to airfares, because both are served by the major "low cost" carriers that still exist. But the more I think about this - the NCHC will likely be trying very hard to do nothing that the WCHA does. I'm wondering if Denver will ever be awarded another regional or Frozen Four date. Unlikely for the FF - but I could see maybe a regional held in the Budweiser Events Center.... maybe ???